ARTICLES

Improper and Unsuitable

What the Church Says About Women's Ordination

BY CHRISTOPHER ZEHNDER

Either it's old or it's not.
In her press release last April, "Woman Priest Answers San Jose Diocese," Victoria Rue claimed priestly ordination of women is both old and new. News reports that Rue, a professor of comparative religious studies and women's studies, had been presiding at "Masses" held on the campus, prompted the diocese on April 21 to announce she was no "validly ordained priest of the Roman Catholic Church." But Rue demurred. "There is a clear history of women apostles, office holders, deacons, priests and bishops in the early church," said Rue in her press release. At the same time, however, she said, "women priests represent a new model of priesthood, not a schismatic church."

If Rue and proponents of women's priestly ordination are correct, then women priests are hardly a new model, but a most ancient one. However, as one proponent of priestly ordination, Professor Giorgio Otranto, has said, there is a "lamentable paucity of evidence" for the ordination of women in the early Church. (See "It's Lamentable," July/August Faith). Further, as even proponents of women's priestly ordination have to admit, the mainstream tradition of the Church has always rejected the idea that priestly ordination can be given to women.

What exactly has the Church said about women's ordination?

In the early centuries of the Church, the question of whether women could be ordained to the priesthood -- or whether their ordinations would be valid -- was not addressed in any complete way. Church councils, for instance, forbade the service of women at the altar. The Council of Laodicea (around 363-364) decreed that "women may not go to the altar." Later, the Sixth Council of Paris (c. 829) invoked Laodicea when it noted that "in certain of our provinces, contrary to divine law and canon law, women of their own accord go to the holy altars, and boldly touch the sacred vessels, and give the sacred vestments to priests, and what is even more improper and unsuitable, they give to the people the body and blood of the Lord...." The Council of Paris also cited Pope Gelasius, who in an epistle written in 494, said, "we have heard to our annoyance that divine affairs have come to such a low state that women are encouraged to officiate at the sacred altars and to take part in all matters imputed to the offices of the male sex, to which they do not belong."

Besides councils, the writings of Church fathers and other early texts speak against the priestly ordination of women, though more or less clearly. The second century Didascalia Apostolorum, which purports to contain the teachings of the Twelve Apostles, forbids the Church's teaching office to women. Addressing consecrated widows, it declares it "neither right nor necessary ... that women should be teachers, and especially concerning the name of Christ and the redemption of His passion. For you have not been appointed to this, O women, and especially widows, that you should teach, but that you should pray and entreat the Lord God. For He the Lord God, Jesus Christ our Teacher, sent us the Twelve to instruct the People and the Gentiles; and there were with us women disciples, Mary Magdalene and Mary the daughter of James and the other Mary; but He did not send them to instruct the people with us. For if it were required that women should teach, our Master Himself would have commanded these to give instruction with us."

But what of women exercising liturgical functions? The only mention one finds of this in the writings of the fathers is to the practices of heretical sects, which are always disparaged or condemned. For instance, the second century Church father, St. Irenaeus of Lyon, in his Adversus Haereses, speaks of the heretic Marcus that he had given "mixed cups to the women," bidding them to "consecrate these in his presence." And "when this has been done, he himself produces another cup of much larger size than that which the deluded woman has consecrated...." "The very women of these heretics, how wanton they are!" says another second century father, Tertullian. And why? "For they are bold enough to teach, to dispute, to enact exorcisms, to undertake cures -- it may be even to baptize."

In the fourth century, however, St. Epiphanius spoke more clearly in his own Adversus Haereses. "If women were ordained to be priests for God or to do anything canonical in the Church, it should rather have been Mary," he wrote. And, "although there is an order of deaconesses in the Church, yet they are not appointed to function as priests, or for any administration of this kind, but so that provision may be made for the propriety of the female sex." This "propriety" was assisting at the baptisms of women. St. John Chrysostom, speaking in his On the Priesthood of the care to be taken in choosing priests, notes, "but when there is question of setting a pastor over the Church and confiding to him the care of so many souls, let the whole female sex and the majority of men withdraw from so great a task."

The context of these early utterances against ordaining women was that "a few heretical sects in the first centuries, especially Gnostic ones, entrusted the exercise of the priestly ministry to women," according to Inter Insigniores, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 1976 "Declaration on the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood." In this document, the Congregation noted that while the writings of the Fathers sometimes display "prejudices unfavorable to women," these "had hardly any influence on their pastoral activity, and still less on their spiritual direction." Finally, at the heart of the ancient Church's reasons for rejecting the ordination of women, says Inter Insigniores, is the understanding that "by calling only men to the priestly Order and ministry in its true sense, the Church intends to remain faithful to the type of ordained ministry willed by the Lord Jesus Christ and carefully maintained by the Apostles."

This "same conviction" continued into the Middle Ages, according to Inter Insigniores. It was expressed by a number of medieval scholastics, most notably St. Thomas Aquinas. Thomas points out that sacraments require elements, which if missing, invalidate them. For instance, if sand instead of water be used in baptism, there is no baptism -- here, an element necessary to signify the cleansing character of baptism is missing. One who seeks to receive a sacrament in this way, receives neither the sacrament nor the grace it gives. A person, however, can receive the sacrament, but not the grace it gives, when he receives it in a way contrary to the command of Christ -- as when a non-believer is baptized. He is truly baptized and incorporated into the Church, but he receives no salvation from the sacrament. Thomas says a woman can receive neither the sacrament of orders nor its grace, because something is lacking in the sacramental sign. It is like giving the Sacrament of the Anointing to someone who is not sick -- healing here makes no sense if there is nothing to heal. Likewise, according to Thomas, because the sacrament of orders signifies "a certain eminence of degree" (since it places someone in the hierarchy of the Church), a woman is not a valid recipient of it, because "it is not possible in the female sex to signify eminence of degree, for a woman is in the state of subjection."

It is perhaps such an argument to which Inter Insiginiores refers when it notes that the "Scholastic doctors, in their desire to clarify by reason the data of faith, often present arguments on this point that modern thought would have difficulty in admitting or would even rightly reject." Nevertheless, their arguments are not the point, according to the Holy See's document; it is their reiteration of the Church's tradition. "The Church's tradition in the matter [of ordaining women]," continues Inter Insigniores, "has thus been so firm in the course of the centuries that the Magisterium has not felt the need to intervene in order to formulate a principle which was not attacked, or to defend a law which was not challenged. But each time that this tradition had the occasion to manifest itself, it witnessed to the Church's desire to conform to the model left to her by the Lord."

This tradition culminated in May 1994 when Pope John Paul II issued his apostolic letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. In this letter, John Paul noted Paul VI's 1976 letter to the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury in which the pope said the Church does "not hold it admissible to ordain women to the priesthood for very fundamental reasons." These reasons were developed in Inter Insigniores, which gave as historical evidence the fact that Christ did not call women to be members of the Twelve Apostles, not even his mother; the apostles, too, did not ordain women, though they broke with Mosaic practices in other areas and eventually worked in a non-Jewish world which had priestesses.

More importantly, Inter Insigniores argues that since the priesthood is sacramental, "the priest is a sign ... that must be perceptible and which the faithful must be able to recognize with ease." Quoting Aquinas, the document states that "sacramental signs represent what they signify by natural resemblance." The document continues, "the same natural resemblance is required for persons as for things; when Christ's role in the Eucharist is to be expressed sacramentally, there would not be this 'natural resemblance' which must exist between Christ and his minister if the role of Christ and his minister were not taken by a man; in such a case, it would be difficult to see in the minister the image of Christ. For Christ himself was and remains a man."

John Paul II's Ordinatio Sacerdotalis summarizes the arguments from Inter Insigniores. However, to these arguments he adds a definitive Roma locuta est. "Wherefore," says Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, "in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."

In Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, it appears the Church spoke finally and definitively on women's ordination. Rome has spoken, it seems; but, given the persistence of the Victoria Rues in the Church, the matter is hardly finished.

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SIDEBAR: THE MYSTERY IS WHAT IT IS

Proponents of ordaining women to the priesthood would seem to have had a hard time of it since 1994, when Pope John Paul II issued Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. However, besides denouncing the chauvinism of the Vatican's "old men," women's ordination defenders have basically ignored the apostolic letter. It is not an ex cathedra statement, they say; it is not infallible.

Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, when head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, stated the opposite. In a Responsum ad dubium issued in 1995, Ratzinger, while not calling Ordinatio Sacerdotalis an ex cathedra statement, said, "it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium."

To clarify this matter and others having to do with Ordinatio Sacerdotalis and the question of ordaining women, I spoke with Father Cajetan, a theologian. (Father Cajetan requested anonymity given the Faith's unpopularity in certain clerical circles.)

Is Ordinatio Sacerdotalis infallible?

Father Cajetan: It meets all the requirements for infallibility. From people I have talked to who were directly involved with the drawing up of the document, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was written so as to fulfil all the requirements for an infallible statement, without being pronounced and announced as such. Infallibility, of course, extends to all papal teaching [not just ex cathedra statements] which meet the requirements, and with Ordinatio Sacerdotalis there was a desire not to use the extraordinary magisterium directly but to use a formulation which made it very clear that the teaching the document expressed is irreformable and infallible.

Why would the Holy See not want to speak ex cathedra on so important a question?

Cardinal Ratzinger at the time was very concerned that recourse to the extraordinary magisterium would not be helpful for the overall ecclesiological problem that many do not accept that the Church's ordinary magisterium is infallible when universally and consistently proclaimed. One of the programs of John Paul II's reign, at least in terms of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was to try to bolster, insist upon, and restore the authority of the ordinary magisterium. One often hears in a religious education context the statement, "well, that's not infallibly defined," as if the Church's infallibility extends only to extraordinary statements. If that were the case, of course, there would be very little of which we could be certain, and it would be extremely lopsided. For instance, we would be certain of Mary's Assumption into heaven but not of her perpetual virginity.

So the emphasis [in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis] was on the ordinary magisterium: that this [the teaching that the Church has no authority to ordain women] is a teaching which is universal and has been universally proposed. Inter Insigniores emphasizes that this teaching has been the constant tradition of East and West, and so has been universally held in terms of place and in terms of time. From the earliest period of Church history, whenever the question came up, it was always regarded as a notion associated with heresy and a misunderstanding of the Church and the sacrament.

It seems that knowledge of the infallibility of the ordinary and universal magisterium is not well known....

[Vatican II's] Lumen Gentium explicitly teaches the infallibility of the universal magisterium. ["This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme Magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking."] Other examples of where the ordinary magisterium has been infallible is when it has spoken on the immorality of contraception, the inviolability of innocent human life, and the invalidity of Anglican orders (a disciplinary, doctrinally related question).

It is sometimes argued that reasons for a teaching cited in a document like Ordinatio Sacerdotalis are not conclusive and, therefore, the teaching is not conclusive.

This goes back to a very important question regarding the nature of the magisterium and the Church's mandate. John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor makes it clear that the arguments for the Church's positions that are contained in magisterial documents do not have the same weight or binding force as the conclusions that are proposed as a part of the Church's constant teaching or of divine revelation. So Catholics are free to develop or to reflect or to propose other or sounder or different arguments for the Church's teaching. That's the role of theology, to deepen the understanding of what the Church proposes authoritatively.

But is not the case that the Church's teaching rests on the theological perfection of the arguments, which may be propounded to explain a particular teaching. That's why the pope says the Church does not feel herself authorized to ordain women. That is, if [the teaching derives from] the Church's own sense of her mission and of the nature of the sacraments which she bestows, then it is part of revelation. If the teaching were based on arguments, then you could say that in earlier centuries the Church could not bind the faithful to, say, the doctrine of the Trinity because in the development of Church teaching over the centuries there have been better and better, more precise expositions of the mystery of the Trinity. So what we' re being called to is a deeper reflection on what is a given in Catholic faith and practice regarding the sacrament of holy orders. And, if anything, the pope makes an appeal to theologians and others to deepen this awareness, holding forth that the Church is conscious in the charism given to her legitimate pastors, headed by the pope, that she cannot ever ordain women to the priesthood.

Some of the reasons given for this teaching [that the Church has no authority to ordain women] have to do with the mystery of the incarnation; and when you're treating something that is a corollary of the mystery of the incarnation, ultimately you are not going to have conclusive rational arguments. People might say, "Jesus might have come as a woman," or other speculative considerations, which are neither here nor there, because the mystery is what it is. And it's very easy to fall into the trap that by using worldly or merely rational arguments we are somehow able to explain what is ultimately mysterious. The priesthood is an extension of the incarnation, the headship of Christ over the Church, and that mystery can be accepted on faith by the witness of miracles and the constant teaching of the Church and her authority. But conclusive rational arguments can never be offered -- much less arguments that are based on changing social standards.

What authority do documents issued by Vatican congregations, such as Inter Insigniores, have?

The documents that come from the Holy See have a doctrinal weight according to the juridical form they take. An instruction or declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith means that, with the Holy Father's approval (and it's usually specific approval for something so important), this document has been produced to reflect the Church's teaching. Usually, if it is a current issue which is out there and is continuing to be discussed, such an instruction or declaration is the first step -- and it may be sufficient just to instruct people what is already the Church's constant teaching and tradition, and so on. From a purely juridical point of view, it is not the highest level of authority. But its contents tell us that, based on the Church's ordinary teaching and constant tradition -- which are, of course, of great authority -- such and such a teaching is upheld.

It is important not to quibble about juridical form -- as is often done, but usually only by those who are looking to dissent. If we look at our role as Catholics to accept wholeheartedly the ordinary teaching of the Church in the spirit of faith and obedience, then we're not going to be quibbling about whether it is a declaration or an instruction or an apostolic letter. There's a purpose for this juridical form; but when the teaching that is proposed is repeated again and in even more solemn form, then the matter is made even clearer. And John Paul II removed forever all question as to whether the Church may ordain women.

If magisterial definitions were only as good as the arguments given for them, then it seems Church teaching would determined and judged by theologians, not the theologians judged by Church teaching.

In the end, the juridical form question is a way of avoiding this. The Church sees that she teaches authoritatively and that her teaching to varying degrees has the quality of being law. Therefore, it's not just a question of the opinions of theologians or the opinions proposed, but of the authority of the Church to define something or to bind the faithful to accept something. The theological arguments are for the consolation and edification and defense of the faithful, but they don't constitute the magisterium. The magisterium is not theology.

John Paul II, in his reign, I think, felt the pressure of having to do theology himself because professional theologians were giving so little support to the Church's traditional teaching in many areas. So, in a sense, that's given the false sense that the magisterium's job is to provide exhaustive treatments of doctrinal issues, when, in point of fact, the magisterium's job is to make it clear what the rule of faith is.

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